Monday, June 27, 2011

There is a conservative commentor on the Huffington Post who calls herself Della Street after the secretary on the old Perry Mason show. (I assume the poster is a woman) Her picture is a shot of the actress who played the role--Barbara Hale (pictured), whose only other claim to fame I can recall is playing Dean Martin's wife in the Airport movie (1970). I have responded to some of her comments with sarcastic remarks about enjoying her work on the TV.

Anyway, earlier this week Della responded to a story about the gay marriage vote in the NY State Senate with this terse comment: "Anybody else as sick of this gay rights crap as I am?" I responded: "Della, when you were a young girl back in the 1860s, I'll bet you went around saying 'Is anybody else as sick of this emancipation crap as I am?'" My witty joke was up for a while, but then it seemed to be taken down, appartently because I was making a personal attack on Della, who doesn't have to expose her true identity.

As the NY State Senate passed the gay marriage bill, I wondered how Della was feeling and how the right wing will respond. Will this be used against Democrats in 2012 and will the four brave Republicans who voted in favor of the bill in NY be punished by their rabid, homophobic base? The bill doubles the number of gays eligible to marry and sets the agenda for more states to follow.

One other interesting note: at yesterday's Gay Pride March thousands of people were holding up signs that read THANK YOU GOVERNOR and on the other side PROMISE KEPT. All theses signs were professional looking and printed rather than handmade, which means somebody must have ordered them BEFORE the vote was taken on late Friday night in order for them to ready on time. Coulod it have someone on Gov. Cuomo's staff perhaps?

Thursday, June 23, 2011

ABC premiered its Amazing Race rip-off summer series, Operation: Impossible tonight. Mark Burnett, executive producer of Survivor, stole all the elements from his Emmy-winning rival--teams of ordinary people, exotic location, legs--they call them stages or something like that--the finish line, editing to keep you from knowing who comes in last til the last second. The only differences are the teams are made up of three rather than two, the whole series is only in one country (Morocco), and the host is not from New Zealand or remotely cute. But there are no local citizens in colorful native costumes to greet the finishing teams, plus no prizes at the end of each leg for the first-place team. And the ultimate prize is only $150,000 as opposed to the TAR's cool million.

On the plus side, there are more teams--13 whereas the Race usually has 11, or at the most 12. We don't get to know the teams very well as a result. We have the usual assortment of overconfident jocks, surprisingly athletic gays, and whiny spoiled people. I was rooting for the Fab 3, two gay ex-lovers and the sister of one, and the No Limits team just because they have a blind member. Right away I hated the California girls for saying "Oh look, a blind guy, we can count them out, and look, somebody's grandpa. We won't have to worry about them." I also hated the football players for making fun of AJ of the Fab 3 for digging for water and then taking some of it when they teal-clad team worked hard to dig for the moisture and found it. You'll notice the Fab 3 came in second and were on their feet and not exhausted, while the football players came in third and were totally exhausted. They were crawling and collapsing. One even admitted they don't train for endurance.

Also like Amazing Race, you could tell who was going to be eliminated, because they got a lot of screen time. (The Latin Persuasion team.)

I will give this new show a try, especially since there is nothing else worth watching. There have been other TAR wanna bes like NBC's Treasure Hunters which did not last beyond its initial season. I have a feeling this one could be repetitious since we'll be in Morocco the whole time. Did you notice the extended commercial Burnett did for the Ford Focus?

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

After 44 years I have finally solved the mystery of the Spider-Man lyrics. Back in 1967, there was a Spider-Man cartoon series on ABC I used to watch every week. I knew all the lyrics of the theme song by heart, except one which didn't make any sense to me. In the middle of their description of what a cool guy Spider-Man is, I thought the singers were saying "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, Welcome friends, he's a yourd, Action is his reward." What the hell is a yourd?, I thought at age 8. A few years later, I listened again and thought it was "Welcome Friends, he's adored."

This past week, I came across a video of Patrick Page, the actor playing the Green Goblin in the Broadway musical version of Spider-Man doing a dramatic reading of the lyrics to the theme song. Finally the words were revealed as "Wealth and fame he's ignored/Action is his reward." Now I can sleep at night.

Friday, June 3, 2011

ABC is trying to rip off my favorite show "The Amazing Race." Mark Burnett, of "Survivor" fame, is biting off that Dutch producer who does TAR. It's a summer show called "Operation: Impossible" which begins its run in a few weeks. There are teams just like on TAR--only it's trios instead of duos. I saw the commercial recently and I already hate one team. It's the one with the guy who says "I don't wanna be beat by a blind guy." What a pig! From the looks of things, it seems to be a combination of "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" with exotic locations and stunts like parachuting and bungee jumping. I'm willing to give it a chance and will blog about the first episode. There's no TAR or Project Runway to write about anyway. Some of the best reality shows have been brief summer flings like VH-1's Kept with Jerri Hall casting for a boy-toy in London and the same network's Strip Search, a casting show for a Vegas male strip revue.

In other less important news, they won't shut up about Anthony Weiner's Twitter bulge and Sarah Palin and Donald Trump ate pizza together at this crummy joint in Times Square I only go to when I only have ten minutes before curtain time at a Broadway show. You'd think with all their freakin' millions they'd find a classier joint to eat pizza. Or maybe they are just tryin' to show they just plain folks--maybe running for Prez and maybe not.

Speaking of which, the bad jobs report got everybody salivating over at Morning Joe. The panel could not contain itself at the prospect of a vulnerable Obama and a wide-open Republican field. "Double-dip recession," Scarborough cried, "Obama's in trouble. Everyone will forget he got Osama." Both Palin and Guiliani pissed all over Romney's opening announcement by visitng New Hampshire on the same day Mittens launched his campaign and badmouthing the one good thing he did as gov. of Mass.--public health care. I hope both Joan of Anchorage and Nasty Rudy get in and embarass themsevles. You just know this will be a free-for-all with all of the Repubs trying to prove themselves Tea-Partier-Than-Thou. Unfortunately, Obama has the bad economy to deal with, but if he plays Ryan's Kill-Medicare and Cantor's No Aide for Tornado Victims against the Repubs he can still win.

About Me

David Sheward, critic (ArtsinNY.com, Theaterlife.com), author ("Rage and Glory: The Volatile Life and Times of George C. Scott"). Musings on politics, pop culture, travel, reality TV, and anything else that strikes me.